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The seventh perek of Massekhet Yoma, which begins on today’s daf, opens with a description of the kohen gadol reading the command of the Yom Kippur service as it appears in the Torah (Vayikra 16:1-34; 23:26-32). The Jerusalem Talmud derives the need for this public reading from the passage “…and he did as God commanded Moshe,” which is understood to obligate not only performance of the avoda (Temple service), but also teaching about it.
The Mishna notes that the people who came to watch the Yom Kippur service needed to choose whether to attend the Torah reading or to go to see the burning of the sacrifices (the par and se’ir), which were done outside of Jerusalem, as was taught in the previous perek.
We present a few meditations on the Yom Kippur liturgy as it applies to the KG then to our spiritual worship ending with the famous transgressive poem by Yehuda Amichai.